


All You Have is Your Fire

by Ukthxbye



Series: drabbles and prompts [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Active Shooter, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Molly Hooper, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, F/M, Gun Violence, Hiding, Locked In, POV Molly Hooper, Police, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Kissing, Sherlock Texting, St Bartholomew's Hospital, Tension, Terrorism, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 10:32:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16427657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ukthxbye/pseuds/Ukthxbye
Summary: Molly is locked down in St. Barts in an active shooter situation, only able to text Sherlock.





	All You Have is Your Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Important note: At the time of posting, I did not know of the active shooter/terrorism in Pittsburgh and my heart hit the floor after I started coming back to the real world after posting. I ignore alerts and everything in my last edits.  
> Please heed the warnings and tags. Nothing is especially graphic but it is intense. My heart is breaking today. These events are why I often escape into writing and this piece felt like I was controlling some of those outside demons. I got a swift reminder I do not. Hug someone you love today. Tell them you love them. Text if that is all you got.

  
  


Clicking, the clip is set and then shots ring out with screams. 

 

Molly Hooper can’t hear the sound as deep and far as she is in St. Bart’s Hospital. Her radio is blaring, and she finishes the last stitch on a John Doe, saying a final word of peace for him that she at least found the poison others had missed.

 

Her phone buzzed on the counter several times. One, two...three and four rapid successions. 

 

Like a phone call ring broken up. 

 

_ Snap _ go the gloves.

 

Five more  _ pops _ on the second floor and three  _ ka-thuds _ .

 

Then the alarms finally ring and hum through the room and halls.

 

She snatches up her phone, and a scream catches in her throat; she nearly chokes on it.

 

**BBC Alert: St. Bartholomew's Hospital on lockdown active shooter.**

 

**St. Barts-Lockdown please follow protocol. Lock your doors, lights off.**

 

**Please advise your location-SH**

 

**Molly, please respond if you can-SH**

 

She shakingly pulls his messages up as she locks the door and turns off the lights.

 

**…**

He is typing again.

 

**I am ok-MH**

 

**…**

 

**In morgue-MH**

 

She begins to type,  **I am safe,** but his text pops up and the buzz sounds like a bomb in her hands. She frantically turns off the setting for the buzz and returns to messages and slides under a table near the back of the room.

 

**I was near St. Barts. I have arrived at the scene. They do not have the shooter yet or know if it is more than one. Please advise anything you hear-SH**

 

She hits _ send. _

 

**I am safe-MH**

 

Her hands tremble as her mind begins to conjure the worst scenarios, adrenaline taking over control. Above her colleagues are dead and dying. Blood on white walls. So what if she deals in death all the time. So what if blood spills on those walls every day. Terror disregards habit and routine.

 

She misses the feel of the buzz of the texts on her phone. Something tactile about the connection. The phone feels hot but lifeless in her too tight grasp. But she cannot risk it.

She checks it, clutching it close to her chest.

 

**…**

 

Deep breaths don’t work. Her heart pumps against her chest and she strains to hear anything in the hall.

 

**Molly, there are two-SH**

 

She draws a breath through her nose. Raggedly it leaves through her mouth. 

 

**Please stay hidden...please-SH**

 

**They won’t let me near but I will find you-SH**

**...**

 

She stares at the text.

 

**I promise-SH**

 

They were friends, right? He would do this for any friend she reminds her heart which lit up with an inconvenient and poorly timed hope. But she clings to the thought and she shakes less. 

 

Frozen in place in her dark corner.

The squeak of shoes shuffling in haste down the hall. Pausing as if stopping at doors. Doors she begins to countdown.

 

One last text frantically typed; its seven doors away. 

 

**They r close txt when gone.-MH**

 

Five doors. They lingered at the sixth. 

 

She risks one more.

 

**If something happens knnow…** can she type that? Admitting something he perceives but ignores. But now its recorded. But she cannot die with it unsaid. He needs to know someone loved him enough to need to do this. That she died loving him. Her heart aches in her chest in a vision of what that will do to him. She has no time to reflect on regret. 

 

Three doors and a pause to check something. She hears clicking. 

 

There’s the tremble again, so much it hurts as she struggles to keep still.

 

**If something happens knnow that I love you-MH**

 

_ Send  _ pressed and the phone flat against her chest.

 

One door left.

 

She closes her eyes, in case they could possibly reflect any light. The feet at the door and a gentle tug at the door. 

 

Two heartbeats.

 

_ Thunk! _ The door yanked but stays locked. She holds her breath and squeezes her eyes tighter still. 

 

Five heartbeats, then the sound moves on to door nine. She breathes out slowly. 

 

Then all hell breaks loose. Shouts and warnings and then the shots ring out.

 

She buries her head in her legs, arms tight around her ears as gunfire takes over every sense rattling the room. 

 

Then a hush.

 

They got their man. She hears bits of words and phrases that reassure of it. Her ears ring from the bullets that rained in the hall, but she knows she is safe now. 

 

“OFFICER DOWN!”

 

She pulls her head up, drops her phone in her coat, rushes to the door and unlocks it, jumping out hands up.

 

I am a doctor!” and she flashes her badge when given the ok.

 

With a nod, she is at work. Compressing a shoulder wound no gloves and she shrugs off her concerns. “He needs surgery,” she advises quickly to the next officer who leans down to listen to her.

 

Time passes in slow drips, aware of the officer’s blood pump between her fingers. She watches his face grimace and go pale. “Stay awake. You got him. You did well,” she reassures absently. He can only manage a weak nod.

 

Staff arrives and he is wheeled off. “Thank you”, pats on the shoulder and she is guided away quickly to go upstairs. 

 

His blood on her hands and clothes. She watches them roll the shooter to the elevator. What is left of him. She doubts she’ll get the pleasure of his post-mortem. 

 

Then that sinking feeling of what she text rises bile in her throat. She pulls her phone back out, caring not as she smears blood on the screen.

 

**Then I beg you don’t let anything happen to you-SH**

 

Furrowing brow, she shakes off that tiny and greedy fancy that just made her heart skip.

 

“Anything I can do?” she asks around, but she’s cleared to go outside now. 

 

The sun unfairly shines bright, and she shields her eyes as she wanders outside. A tall figure running to her blurs in her vision. Then the sun blocked, and she blinks, adjusting to being in shadow again.

 

“Sher-” his name catches in her throat, knowing it is him.

 

His arms enfold her and his hand slips to the base of her skull, rubbing it gently as she buries her head in his chest. 

 

His scent fills her nose with something other than iron as her tears pool hot in her eyes. She can’t reflect on the fact that Sherlock doesn’t hug or let anyone bury their face in his chest to her knowledge. His wonderful thudding heartbeat in her ear louder than any thoughts or sirens. 

He pulls back, just enough to move a hand to her face to her cheek.

 

“You didn’t text me back,” he whispers, his eyes wet as well, a new shock to her.

 

“I am a doctor I had to help first, Sherlock,” she rasps, looking down away and back to him.

 

“I...I didn’t know...I was afraid I lost you...I,” he stammers out, holding her gaze.

 

He gulps, the corners of his lips upturning on an open mouth, and she finds her trembling returning.

Leaning down suddenly, his lips cover hers with a warm, near chaste kiss at first.

 

She grasps his neck as he lifts her up off her feet, deepening it.

 

But the noise around them, sirens, and media and crowd soon break the spell.

 

Once her feet land on the ground, he kisses her forehead, holding his lips there. 

 

“I love you, my Molly,” he whispers, stroking her cheek. 

 

“I love you too, Sherlock.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> anon requested this on tumblr with three words. Hospital, lock-down and terrified. 
> 
> I wrote this listening to Arsonist's Lullabye by Hozier. It doesn't fit lyrical as such except the lyric I titled the fic from. The song has the right tension to listen to while you read.
> 
> My beta mouse9 wrote a companion piece in Sherlock’s POV https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446254


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